Disappearance Man

“Well, continuing with my policy of baring my soul, Dwight Garnersaid something like, the book was like one of those satellite photos of North Korea when I talked about the second marriage. I obviously had very little access to Updike from ‘77 on, really. And I cheated a bit by using Ian McEwan as my spy in the Updike household. First of all, Updike definitely did pull up the drawbridge and retire into his castle and I thought, in a sense, that this should be respected. He had decided on his persona, at that point—the highly professional man of letters. And I thought, why not let him go out with that persona intact?” At The Awl, Elon Greentalks with Adam Begley about his new biography of John Updike.

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Thomas Beckwith is a Writer and Project Assistant for The Millions. A native of Baltimore, he worked in New York for three years before leaving to pursue a Master's degree in Irish literature. You can find him on Twitter at @tdbeckwith.